1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of information handling systems. More specifically, the present invention is related to a method and apparatus for providing a visual representation of multiple, quantifiable attributes of an information record on an information handling system display.
2. Background Information
The ability to convert information into digital format, and to store that information for later use has made the libraries of the world available to individuals for on-line searching and retrieval. It has also made it possible to send messages, in voice or text, that can be converted to digital text formats and stored in electronic mailboxes for an individual to retrieve and review. With the proper information handling system, such as a desk top computer, network computer, laptop computer, or wireless device hooked up to a network, such as the internet or world wide web, or a local area network, an individual can access and view any or all of this information.
Unfortunately, the vast quantity of information that an individual can retrieve with an electronic search, or receive in an electronic mailbox on an average day, can render the value of such search or electronic mail useless due to information overload. That is, with so much information, how do you determine which document or mail to read first, or which ones to delete without reading? Therefore, it has been desirable to come up with new methods and apparatus to present to the user a visual indication of the information that is of greatest interest to the recipient.
Typical solutions to the problem have included: (1) Using only the file name, as in a directory listing. This often fails to convey adequate information and often misleads the user concerning the contents of the document. (2) Using the document title. Many titles fail to adequately describe the contents of their documents, and often are so long that they must be truncated to fit, thereby cutting off information necessary to determine the contents of the document. (3) Using keywords. Adequate keywords to fully characterize a document takes a lot of space. Besides taking a lot of space, the first words of a document often fail to summarize a document's contents. (4) Using a textual summary of the document. Besides taking a lot of space, the writing of the summary is typically a manual process by a human being, and as such, could only be done for a small selection of information records.
Information handling systems loaded with standard software application programs such as electronic mail (e-mail) and search engines and Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) have made possible the collection and display of certain characteristics of information records. In the case of e-mail, it is known to display in text format such information as the author of the message, the date the information record or document was created, the size of the message, and a subject as provided by the author. It is also known that an icon, such as a representation of an envelope as shown in FIG. 1 can be associated with the text information to show if the message has been viewed, or the urgency that the author placed on the message. However, as will be explained in greater detail below, such icons as are known in the art do not provide for quantitative representations of multiple attributes associated with a document that would allow the recipient to visually determine if the message is worth reading sooner than another message as the title and urgency selected by the author does not always reflect the interest or the urgency that the recipient places on the same message. In addition, the representation of a document by its title and other textual identification has the disadvantage of taking large amounts of space in the visual field while failing to properly identify the contents of the document or information record in many cases. This problem is applicable to any collection of documents or information records, including the presentation of electronic document search results.
In the case of data base searches, it is known to provide lists of documents that relate to certain topics that the requester defined for the search. One full text search system, as shown in FIG. 2, provides for the use of tilebars in which graphic information is presented along with the text information. A program on an information handling system generates a "tilebar" that aids visualization of the size of the documents by varying the length of the tilebar. It also visually displays the distribution of the search terms within the document. In such a system, the length and width of each tilebar varies depending on the number of search terms used, in that for each term searched, there is one corresponding layer of the tilebar, and the length of the tilebar varies with the length of the document. While such a system of visualization is an improvement over prior systems of displaying the output of a document search, such a search system still requires greater analysis on the part of the viewer, thereby requiring more time to determine how important a specific document is in relation to all the other documents. Also, the tilebar is a large graphic, taking up valuable display screen area. Nor does such a system provide for quantifiable measurement of multiple attributes of the document itself, rather, such systems display measurements of one document against all the other documents retrieved in a search.
As shown in FIG. 8, it is known that an application program running under Microsoft Windows.RTM. 3.11 operating system could produce a three bar graph 800 to indicate the current level of resource usage (bars 801, 803, 805) of the host computer. When the application was running, the three bar graphs were annotated and labeled. When the application was minimized, the icon for the application consisted of the same three bars in the same three colors, but since the graph then resided in a 16.times.16 bit icon, no labels or annotation were visible. The result was a compact representation of the state of a computer system. However, this has never been applied to document visualization.
Thus, it is desirable to be able to provide an improved visual representation of multiple attributes of a document, as well as a system and method of providing a visual representation of multiple, quantifiable attributes of a document on an information handling system display.